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Gotta love cable internet monopolies. My internet's been basically useless for any sort of gaming the last month, what with the 2 times normal latency, and godawful variance so that every few seconds it jumps into the high hundreds or even thousands ms. Bandwidth is usually at below 4-5 mbps down, which while not technically too low for my purposes, is a sign of some bad shit going on since it used to always be 10-15 mbps. Upload is remarkably about the same as before.
And should it happen to be one of those periods of time where I happen to have normal ping, godforbid I open a stream of any quality except 240p - BOOM now the ping is going up hardcore. HTTP download speed? 70 kBps tops. I love watching webpages load as if I'm almost on boosted dialup.
Call customer support, they tell me to go to their in house pinging services. All of them say access denied. Great to know that their support things work. Oh, what's that you say, there's no problem and everything appears to be working fine. If I could switch to another internet provider it would be great, luckily for them there is no choice unless I want dialup.
I'd almost blame it on hitting a bandwidth usage cap except I don't have a cap.
 
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Where do you live? I'm surprised there isn't some independent ISP around.
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Raleigh, NC. Only competitor is Earthlink, but they are a "competitor" in the sense that you pay Earthlink but your tech support is Time Warner because Earthlink uses Time Warner's network but puts their brand on it. Have no idea how the hell that works. I mean even the billing is Time Warner (although you are supposedly with Earthlink).
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Yeah many ISPs of the same service type use the same infrastructure, so while you may switch ISP to a different provider, if they are also using cable they are using the same lines, so if the problem is the line to your house or the neighbourhood you're in or something, it really doesn't matter. It can help if the line equipment for the internet is the problem though, as there's a chance the new provider uses their own gear.
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Internet service monopoly is bullshit. If there was a better alternative, you would switch in an instant. It would be a textbook example of a free market working as intended. The inferior company would either have to improve, or be replaced entirely by a superior company.
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GG there's a monopoly in my area too. The internet here dc's like 1/3 of the time, and the service is really crap, but they don't care. Because they know you can't get anything else around the area.
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On January 30 2013 08:27 vOdToasT wrote:
Internet service monopoly is bullshit. If there was a better alternative, you would switch in an instant. It would be a textbook example of a free market working as intended. The inferior company would either have to improve, or be replaced entirely by a superior company.
Yes. And no.
The entire monopoly system (in the US) came into existence because without that guarantee companies would not build out the infrastructure necessary. At the time, the free market dictated that companies making that kind of an investment were looking at a poor chance of being able to recover their investment before they went under from the kind of debt required, without pricing the service at a level that would mean a very small customer base. (This applies, actually, to lots of sectors - power, cable, phone lines, etc.) Now that the infrastructure is in place, the common argument is in upgrading and improving the infrastructure - replacing worn copper, moving lines underground, upgrading switching stations, etc. There's probably an evil teletubby somewhere that can tell you more specifically - but that's the gist of it these days I think.
Also, when judging the "inferior" company, you have to take into account those physical assets - sure, there may be two ISPs available, and while one is sunshine and light and love, its physical structure (the copper lines) may not allow the speeds that the other company (on fiber) may be able to offer. Which is why in some areas, access to the lines can be a deciding factor. You can run coax all over, and have the best available equipment, and you still won't be able to offer the speed or bandwidth available to someone running a full fiber network. The customer service side of things can't overcome physical limitations, and many consumers are all about the speed.
Internet services are like a utility in that sense - No matter how great the power coop nearby is, they don't own the copper leading to my house and they can't expand their copper to offer me the choice of Power company A or power company B.
If you can figure out a way to make it reasonable from a free market perspective (from the company's point of view), please go into business in my area. (I'm not a fan of Cox Cable.)
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I've had very good experiences going with small resellers, both for cable and DSL. The way it usually works for support is that you contact the reseller, and they contact the provider on your behalf. This takes a little longer, but dealing with the reseller is usually a lot more pleasant than dealing with the provider, and they will hassle the provider for you if the problem doesn't go away.
Unfortunately, all my experience is on the west coast, so I don't know how well it applies in NC. Have you thought about just switching to DSL?
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It is crazy that you just opened a blog in regards to this, I had DSL for over ten years, and the past couple of years, it just sucked ass. I had around 2MBPS/.8MBPS down/up respectively - I just recently switched to Cable and I am one happy camper. The speeds are ridiculously good.
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On January 30 2013 11:01 Raithed wrote:
It is crazy that you just opened a blog in regards to this, I had DSL for over ten years, and the past couple of years, it just sucked ass. I had around 2MBPS/.8MBPS down/up respectively - I just recently switched to Cable and I am one happy camper. The speeds are ridiculously good.
Speeds and latency are good when they work. But they haven't been working the last month lol, and they sure as hell don't care to fix it.
On January 30 2013 09:49 munchmunch wrote:
I've had very good experiences going with small resellers, both for cable and DSL. The way it usually works for support is that you contact the reseller, and they contact the provider on your behalf. This takes a little longer, but dealing with the reseller is usually a lot more pleasant than dealing with the provider, and they will hassle the provider for you if the problem doesn't go away.
Unfortunately, all my experience is on the west coast, so I don't know how well it applies in NC. Have you thought about just switching to DSL?
Used to have DSL in this same place, was kind of awful.
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On January 30 2013 11:01 Raithed wrote:
It is crazy that you just opened a blog in regards to this, I had DSL for over ten years, and the past couple of years, it just sucked ass. I had around 2MBPS/.8MBPS down/up respectively - I just recently switched to Cable and I am one happy camper. The speeds are ridiculously good.
They are two completely different types of technology though. DSL speeds usually suck because
a) you're far away enough from the providers office/remote equipment you simply get a crap signal. There's nothing you can do about this other than move or switch to cable basically
b) the provider is congested in that area and can't provide the bandwidth you want even though you are close to an office/remote.
Cable offers more bandwidth in general and can offer the speeds over longer distances, which can solve the problem a for some people, but your line isn't dedicated, so your latency and bandwidth can suffer depending on the usage of your neighbours. Some people are lucky and have cable in areas that just don't have the above problems, but not all.
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I'm sorry to hear that dude, I wonder is there any way of getting around this? Are you stuck in this situation with no way of contacting someone like comcast (who, even with their shitty system and frequent drops in service at least have some form of productive customer service) to start up in your area or starting a comcast service in your area? I'm really naive about these things, so I could be very wrong here.
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On January 30 2013 11:06 EtherealDeath wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2013 11:01 Raithed wrote:
It is crazy that you just opened a blog in regards to this, I had DSL for over ten years, and the past couple of years, it just sucked ass. I had around 2MBPS/.8MBPS down/up respectively - I just recently switched to Cable and I am one happy camper. The speeds are ridiculously good. Speeds and latency are good when they work. But they haven't been working the last month lol, and they sure as hell don't care to fix it. Show nested quote +On January 30 2013 09:49 munchmunch wrote:
I've had very good experiences going with small resellers, both for cable and DSL. The way it usually works for support is that you contact the reseller, and they contact the provider on your behalf. This takes a little longer, but dealing with the reseller is usually a lot more pleasant than dealing with the provider, and they will hassle the provider for you if the problem doesn't go away.
Unfortunately, all my experience is on the west coast, so I don't know how well it applies in NC. Have you thought about just switching to DSL? Used to have DSL in this same place, was kind of awful.
That's the problem with bigger companies, they don't care because losing one user is like 0.00001% of the overall statistic to them.
On January 30 2013 11:12 Grobyc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2013 11:01 Raithed wrote:
It is crazy that you just opened a blog in regards to this, I had DSL for over ten years, and the past couple of years, it just sucked ass. I had around 2MBPS/.8MBPS down/up respectively - I just recently switched to Cable and I am one happy camper. The speeds are ridiculously good. They are two completely different types of technology though. DSL speeds usually suck because a) you're far away enough from the providers office/remote equipment you simply get a crap signal. There's nothing you can do about this other than move or switch to cable basically b) the provider is congested in that area and can't provide the bandwidth you want even though you are close to an office/remote. Cable offers more bandwidth in general and can offer the speeds over longer distances, which can solve the problem a for some people, but your line isn't dedicated, so your latency and bandwidth can suffer depending on the usage of your neighbours. Some people are lucky and have cable in areas that just don't have the above problems, but not all.
Luckily for me at the moment, I'm the bold. Knock on wood though, because I am simply just one happy person that has switched to cable Internet - this is my first, it has always been DSL for me.
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If you're with Time Warner, have you tried posting on their direct support forum on dslreports? Support there is typically 10x better than waiting on hold 3x because you need to ask to get transfered to level 2 support and a supervisor.
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On January 30 2013 12:15 skyR wrote:
If you're with Time Warner, have you tried posting on their direct support forum on dslreports? Support there is typically 10x better than waiting on hold 3x because you need to ask to get transfered to level 2 support and a supervisor.
Will do ~
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On January 30 2013 11:49 docvoc wrote:
I'm sorry to hear that dude, I wonder is there any way of getting around this? Are you stuck in this situation with no way of contacting someone like comcast (who, even with their shitty system and frequent drops in service at least have some form of productive customer service) to start up in your area or starting a comcast service in your area? I'm really naive about these things, so I could be very wrong here.
I use bandwidth like mad (if it is there). To hell with 250gb caps!
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Thats pretty rough.
America and canada really seem to have god awful internet services for such an upstanding 1st world country really, i hear constant tales of woe, bandwidth caps and douchebaggery from companies. I suppose the big cities have all the gadgets though, which sucks ass.
Honestly it seems like i have a better connection with a bloody phone-sim internet wireless in sri lanka. At least i can get a stable 230 ping to EU, watch 360p and download at a nice 200kb/s rate, still all for an extortionate amount of 200RS a GB though (about $2 but 200 RS is 1/3 of a days food here lol.) and if the service is shit, there are 2 other independant companies to choose from
I hope your issues get solved soon my friend!
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Blame it on majority of the population that doesn't give a shit. Plus the federal and local lobbied monopolies.
edit: I reside in NYC, bandwidth caps don't exist here but some areas have such congested nodes that it gives pretty similar results in terms of performance. I pay for a connection with a policy up to 22/2 but I get 6/2 no matter what time of day it is, usually the policy states that customers should get at least half of that advertised speed but thats not the case when contractors come to adjust the issue. Not to mention my old modem which they refuse to swap out.
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On January 30 2013 07:32 EtherealDeath wrote:
HTTP download speed? 70 kBps tops. I love watching webpages load as if I'm almost on boosted dialup.
and then, I lolled.
I have had trouble with cable Internet before, and I did also work for a huge ISP and I know how fucked/powerless/ripped you can feel. wish you the best.
I wasnt aware that Raleigh NC was considered backcountry either.
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On January 30 2013 12:58 Kevin_Sorbo wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2013 07:32 EtherealDeath wrote:
HTTP download speed? 70 kBps tops. I love watching webpages load as if I'm almost on boosted dialup.
and then, I lolled. I have had trouble with cable Internet before, and I did also work for a huge ISP and I know how fucked/powerless/ripped you can feel. wish you the best. I wasnt aware that Raleigh NC was considered backcountry either.
The kicker though is that the awful fucking download speed is ONLY for http. Any other protocol and it's magically running at full speed (whatever full speed might be at that moment).
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EPT
